If the Virgin Mary can appear on toast, can the Flying Spaghetti Monster appear in a glass of Arizona iced green tea? And if it did, how do I manage to preserve it for 10 years till I can sell it on eBay for $28k?

Sangria — a wonderful Spanish trick (among others) for making bad to decent wine palatable, and even, really damn good. Take fruit, soak overnight in rum/brandy/your-favourite-hard-liquor, add copious amounts of red wine, serve on a balcony/patio in summer. Made poorly, you’ve got a weird fruit juice-y thing that’s still quite drinkable, made well, you’ve got a potent delicious substance that’ll keep you going back for more, even though you know how quickly it’ll knock you off your feet, because you know how much alcohol is in that innocent-looking pitcher. Recipes and a story, after the jump!

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My dad is, to first approximation, a gun-owning construction worker from a red state. To the same degree of accuracy, I’m a tree-hugging socialist who spends most of my day in a box with climate control and fluorescent lighting. We get along — we are still family, after all — but there still exists something of a divide.

When I was growing up, there was always a case of Budweiser in the garage fridge. Never Bud Lite, never MGD, and never anything in a glass bottle. My dad didn’t brag about it — he didn’t call it “Bud Heavy” like a tool — it’s just what he drank.

I think there are cultural reasons for that. There aren’t a whole lot of nice things about Bud that I can say, but this much is self-evident: it’s cheap, it contains alcohol, and it’s easy to down three after sweating your ass off all day. In other words, he drinks Budweiser like I drink Corona.

He said once that when he was younger, he drank Michelob, but after a point he decided it wasn’t worth the extra money. This is telling; though I’m way too young to actually know this for sure, I have my suspicions that back when my dad became a Budweiser drinker, the beer options in his part of the United States were pretty bleak indeed. If all you’ve got is shitty beer, you might as well drink Bud.

But of course, this isn’t the Seventies, this is the — I dunno — the Noughties? I don’t think there’s a liquor store in the country that doesn’t have at least two different really awesome beers. And here my dad was drinking Bud.

Due to a weird confluence of circumstances, I was halfway through college before I started drinking (what’s the statute of limitations on underage alcohol consumption?), around the same time as my big political awakening. Because my relationship with my parents isn’t predicated upon me sharing the details of my personal life with them, and because drinking with your parents when you’re underage is, generally, kinda weird, the first thing my dad learned about my drinking habits was when I showed up a week after I turned 21 with a Costco case of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Okay, yeah. I know. It’s not Bud, but it still kinda sucks. I could defend that action, but instead I’ll just call it a novice mistake and take a mulligan. It’s the equivalent of reading Chris Hitchens; you live, you learn, and you put it behind you.

Anyway, he thought that Mike’s was okay, albeit too expensive. Once I started learning about what beer really was, that notion stuck with me: my dad’s tastes were malleable.

In hindsight it’s obvious. I mean, he’s not stupid by any stretch. He makes a living with his hands; I only vaguely know which way to turn a wrench. He has some entrenched habits, but, if he’s exposed to conflicting evidence, he is willing to think about them. Sort of like voting Republican - he did it for a long time, but he stopped once all the bodies started coming home from Iraq.

I developed an abiding love for Sierra Nevada that year, and next time I went home, it was with a couple six-packs of that stuff. He hated it — “How do you drink something that bitter?” — and was totally unreceptive to my argument that beer was supposed to be bitter. No way; that’s crazy. Sort of like arguing about gay marriage; just no way to get any traction, because there’s no fundamental agreement of any sort.

I spent the next few months experimenting with different beers, as any nascent beer-drinker might, and stumbled upon the magic bullet: Newcastle Brown. Now, Newcastle is not the perfect beer, but it isn’t at all bitter, and it does have a good flavor to it. Next time I was home, I brought some.

He liked it, no reservations. Victory. “Hey dad, wouldn’t it be cool if you had healthcare?” Why yes, yes it would be.

Next time I went home, there was a case of Newcastle in the fridge. Next to the Budweiser, but still. That was a while ago, but I was home last month, and along with the Newcastle and the Bud, there was a six-pack of some really tasty local nut ale.

There’s hope.

Ah, caipirinhas – perhaps Brazil’s best export outside of footballers (though admittedly, there’s some fine exporting going there). For those that haven’t had the chance to experience one yet, 1. get your arse to the nearest Brazilian steakhouse ASAP, 2. cry into your mojito instead. Of course, I may be a bit biased in this — the first time I ever had a caipirinha, a Brazilian friend brought a giant gourd (literally. a gourd.) filled with mysterious substances that he had us take turns pounding/mashing before we started taking sips and passing it around.

“Pedro. Where on earth did you find a giant gourd??”
“Oh, I missed drinking out of these so much, I ask my mother to buy one and send it to me in the mail.”

Somehow things taste better when it came out of a container sent by someone’s mother 5000 miles away.

Now I don’t remember too much else about that particular drink besides that it was good, I kept calling it capoeiras, and we were preetty happy by the time the gourd had been emptied.

A few days and wikipedia articles later, I had learnt that the secret of the caipirinha is cachaça, or a distilled liquor vaguely resembling rum, but made from sugarcane instead of molasses. The end result tends to be a bit softer than rum, and quite conducive towards sipping. Or awesome cocktails. Cachaça just started being imported into the US recently (before, being mainly popular in Germany… hallo randomness!). The most recognizable brands in the US market are Pitú and Cachaça 51, and indeed, I had a liter of Cachaça 51 courtesy of MarketViewLiquor for 19.99. Haven’t tried to look for cachaça out in the city too much yet, so I don’t know what the de facto availability is.

Anyhow, I had some friends over for dinner, and the debate turned towards the perils of nationalized healthcare; basically, an excellent time to bust out some awesome cocktails. I just happened to have limes. Some brown sugar. Aaaand cachaça! So I started cutting those limes into wedges and got enthusiastically into the muddling business before realizing… I have no idea how to make a caipirinha.

So instead, I did what I do best — make shit up.

Caipijitos (serves 4)
Ingredients
- 1 lime
- 4 tbl of brown sugar
- 4 shots of cachaca
- 1 12oz (standard) can of seltzer water // carbonated water

1. Cut 1 lime into ~8 wedges, put into a thin/tall glass (small french presses are awesome for this). Add the brown sugar and cachaca and muddle.
2. Pour into 4 glasses (in my case, red wine glasses) over a couple ice cubes.
3. Top off each glass with seltzer water & mix.
4. Serve to unsuspecting guests as caipirinhas. Bask in their praise.

Wow. Damn good. I think the star of the party really is the cachaça. I sipped a bit of the stuff later and it has a distinctive taste that stood out nicely in the Capijitos. Definitely worth a second shot at trying to make real caipirinhas.
Till next time… cuidado!

(aq) is written by 2 friends. We feel especially knowledgeable about this subject because we both

1) took the same introductory chemistry class where we learned what (aq) meant

2) are scientists that research things that exist in a kinda aqueous-y state

3) are students that spend an inordinate percentage of their stipend on aqueous consumption

4) grew up next to a large body of water (the Pacific) and now live next to a smaller body of water (the Atlantic)

5) have exactly the same taste in liquids. meaning we must both be awesome.

6) drink everything that’s not fruit juice or soda… and sometimes we even make exceptions for those (read: Trader Joe’s fruit juices).

So, sit back, enjoy, and if there isn’t already, get a mug/glass/cup filled with something fairly liquidy (preferably not your ex’s blood). There’s a world of substances to enjoy!